


The Waiting Game

by angrytourist



Series: complex anatomy [11]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrytourist/pseuds/angrytourist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him, winding him tighter and tighter with nothing to lash out at. If Kanou hadn’t forced this on him, if that ghoul had never found him in ward 21 - what then? There were so many things that had gone wrong in such a short period of time that he couldn’t find any one person to blame for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waiting Game

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as usual for all the support! (´∀`)

The ground was cold beneath Kaneki’s cheek when he woke up, and he could feel where saliva glued the two together with an unpleasant pulling sensation.

“...found him, shouldn’t I keep him?”

“ _I_ was supposed to--”

Arguing? Two unfamiliar voices were going back and forth over him. Kaneki didn’t open his eyes, wishing they’d go away. _I was sleeping so well_...

But that wasn’t right. No, he hadn’t been sleeping. If he had, Tsukiyama would have been there. And the bed was comfortable, not at all like the sheet of cement beneath him.

He was almost embarrassed how long it took him.

He wasn’t with Tsukiyama. He was with someone else, somewhere else, the painful memory of hitting a wall springing to mind. _That’s right_ , he thought, dazed, _I was attacked_.

He wondered where he was, if Tsukiyama had realized yet. Would he look for him?

_Obviously_ , he thought, chagrined. Tsukiyama said he wanted Kaneki around, that he had no plans of getting rid of him. He was probably furious. He’d tear the ward apart looking for him.

Kaneki realized a moment too late the voices had stopped.

“You can open your eyes,” one of them said. “We know you’re awake.” He sounded close, like he was crouching down. Kaneki didn’t want to look.

A hand gripped his hair, forcing his head up. His eyes snapped open of their own accord and brought him face to face with a reptilian looking man. His mouth, impossibly long, was curled into a cruel smile. “You get to meet someone important,” he said. “Look sharp.”

Whatever that meant. Kaneki kept his mouth shut and stumbled to his feet. He realized quickly that it hadn’t been saliva half-dried between his face and the floor, but blood, sticky and browning. He knew he was healed, but that didn’t stop his hand from flying up to probe the side of his head. 

Whoever the second voice was, they were gone now. The distinctly pleased air around his captor suggested he’d won the argument. 

Kaneki didn't put up a fight, not yet. Once he knew the situation, he'd act.

As he was led into a large hall filled with ghouls, Kaneki hoped he hadn't made a mistake.

xxxxx

His captor - Yamori, he’d been called - took Kaneki to a decaying area of the building after the impromptu meeting. He said he had other business to attend to but would come back. Kaneki could work for him until he decided how to use him.

Then he kneed Kaneki in his still-healing stomach and walked away with a smile.

His shirt was covered in drying blood, and from the twinge of pain where the wound - hole, that guy had stuck his entire fist through his stomach - had been, Kaneki expected the flow had yet to fully stop. By the time he pulled himself up and dragged himself to sit against the wall, the first stirrings of hunger were overtaking any pain he’d felt. Kaneki didn’t think anyone was going to treat him to a meal.

The pain, though, had been a blessing. A distraction. 

_Kanou lied_ , Kaneki thought. He’d lied and butchered him and turned him into a monster. For what? What could possibly be the purpose?

And that man - Kaneki struggled to recall his name, only remembering it began with a T - had known about Tsukiyama, too. He’d sneered when he told Kaneki his ‘company’ hadn’t helped him grow at all, whatever that meant. 

Kaneki coughed, grimacing, and then spit out a mouthful of blood.

The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him, winding him tighter and tighter with nothing to lash out at. If Kanou hadn’t forced this on him, if that ghoul had never found him in ward 21 - what then? There were so many things that had gone wrong in such a short period of time that he couldn’t find any one person to blame for it.

Footsteps down the hall, the sound of debris being crushed - Kaneki drew himself upright, tense. He was healed plenty, could fight if he needed to. Tsukiyama once said ghouls were edible, though terrible in taste. If he had to--

“Kaneki? Right?” A man stood a few feet away from him. Kaneki got a good look at him and felt his blood boil.

It was the ghoul who found him in the cafe, the one with the strange beard. He looked concerned. Kaneki should have killed him like Tsukiyama suggested.

“What do you want?” he asked, guarded. If that guy hadn’t found them, Kaneki would be at home. If that ghoul hadn’t given him away--

“I’m Banjou,” the ghoul introduced himself. “I’d hoped--”

“What?” Kaneki asked, keeping his voice flat, cold. “That I’d be dead?”

Banjou looked startled. He must have taken Kaneki for a coward. “No,” he stammered, “why would I--I was trying to war--”

“It’s your fault I’m here,” Kaneki snapped, “don’t think I don’t know that!”

Banjou’s mouth flapped open and closed, words apparently failing him. 

Kaneki turned on his heel, not knowing or caring where he was going so long as it was away from him. “If you follow me,” he called back, not bothering to turn around, “I’ll kill you.” He colored his words with every last ounce of seething rage he’d felt since waking up in the hospital and knowing something had gone terribly wrong.

Banjou said nothing.

xxx

A man named Nico found him wandering through the halls several hours later. Kaneki was hesitant to call him a man, but Nico didn’t seem inclined to correct him.

“Everyone has to work,” he told Kaneki, opening the door to what looked like a sweatshop, filled with hacked up corpses and ghouls obediently tending to them. “If you don’t keep in line, Yamori might make you his toy after all.” He simpered, cheeks flushing.Kaneki had never been so happy to be left alone with dead bodies.

He was less pleased when he noticed who happened to be alive and in the room with him.

Banjou sat at a table with several others, not bothering to hide the way he stared at Kaneki.

One of his tablemates took it upon himself to show Kaneki the ropes, but between his growing hunger and the sensation of eyes following his every move, Kaneki couldn't focus enough even to feel sick about mutilating corpses.

_I've gotten too used to eating every day_ , he thought. Tsukiyama tended to spoil him.

He wondered if Tsukiyama would come for him. 

The meat was older, and it smelled a combination of warm and spoiling that put off Kaneki's appetite the same way its appearance encouraged it. What did they plan to do with it? Sell it, he guessed, and for a high price like Tsukiyama said. 

Kaneki did his best to work mindlessly, to picture himself somewhere else, somewhere safe. He couldn't look weak or who knew what might happen? 

They worked for what felt like hours before Nico came back and dismissed them, handing out scraps as they went. There were rooms to sleep in, most of them claimed, so Kaneki found a deserted hall to crouch in as he unwrapped the meat and scarfed it down.

“You’re a lot like her,” a voice sounded, echoing in the hall. Kaneki’s head snapped up. Banjou was standing a good distance away from him, watching intently. “Rize,” he clarified. “She--well, some of the faces you make, I guess. And you’re strong. Not as strong as her, but if you’ve got parts of her inside you…” He trailed off.

“I told you to stay away from me.” Kaneki swallowed the last of his food, struck with the sudden irrational fear that Banjou might be there to steal it.

“We got off on the wrong foot,” Banjou said placatingly. “Listen, I have a lot to say--”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He’d gotten Kaneki caught. Tsukiyama said he should have killed him, and he’d been right. Kaneki could have been home, could have been safe.

“We can help each other!”

“I don’t want your help!” Banjou flinched back as Kaneki jumped to his feet, and he felt a curious sort of satisfaction. “Leave me alone,” he said. 

Banjou slumped, defeat written plainly across his face. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again, shaking his head, as he turned away. He left, and Kaneki watched until his back disappeared around a corner.

Finally, alone. 

xxx

With Banjou keeping his distance, the rest of the captive ghouls - Kaneki assumed they’d all been forced there - seemed to take his cue, giving Kaneki a wide berth. No one sat near him in the workshop, and no one bothered him in whatever area of the building he chose to squat in that night. They left him completely alone.

Kaneki was grateful, but beyond that, he was just exhausted. He trusted no one and found it difficult to sleep. He wondered constantly if Tsukiyama had figured out where he was, if he was coming, if he missed him, if he cared at all.

Of course he did. He had to, because if Tsukiyama didn’t care, Kaneki had no one left.

Kaneki didn’t often let his thoughts drift that far.

Somehow, during the monotony of his imprisonment, as he prepared the meat and avoided Yamori and watched his own back during the long nights, he’d let several weeks pass. Weeks of wondering when he’d be saved when, perhaps, he could have been saving himself.

It honestly surprised him how long it took to approach the idea of escaping on his own. He could have been trying from the moment he’d healed. Why hadn’t he?

But thinking about the whys and why-nots was a waste. Kaneki spent several days tracking Nico and the various other guards that came in and out of the area the prisoners were kept in, watched how and when they moved. He’d not gone outside, so there was no telling what kind of measures were beyond the doors, but he wasn’t willing to wait it out.

Tsukiyama hadn’t been able to come to Kaneki, so Kaneki decided he would go to him.

He waited until after work, took his meat rations - pathetic though they were - and ate. Kaneki chose a hall close to the doors the guards took, and as soon as everyone had cleared out, he went.

His hand barely managed to touch the door before someone grabbed his wrist.

“You’re making a mistake,” they whispered. Banjou, Kaneki realized. He was gripping Kaneki’s wrist and shaking as though afraid at the same time.

“Let go of me,” Kaneki ground out. He was so close!

“If you open the door, they’ll kill you. You can’t think the only place they watch is here?”

Kaneki let go of the door handle. “I’m willing to take my chances,” he said, but he sounded as tired as he felt. He knew he didn’t stand a chance if he got rushed by even one of them - Nico, Yamori… They were all beyond his abilities. He could feel it.

“There’s a specific time they’ll all be gone,” Banjou said. “There’ll be a ton of gaps in their security. A few of us are planning to escape then. Wait and come with us.”

Kaneki didn’t know what to do. He didn’t trust Banjou. The guy worked for Aogiri in some capacity, and he suspected that if he’d been the one to bring Kaneki in, they might have freed him. There was no other reason he could figure for a prisoner to help them. But he might have a better chance of escaping than Kaneki, given the inside knowledge he seemed to have.

“We could use someone strong,” Banjou tried. “The rest of us--we aren’t used to fighting.”

So he thought Kaneki would protect them? He wasn’t sure if he even _could_.

“When is this?” he asked.

“Two weeks,” Banjou said. “The higher ups go in and out on scheduled rotations. This is the only time they overlap. It doesn’t happen often.” Kaneki could read between the lines: if they didn’t do it then, they were in for a long wait.

Kaneki clenched his fists. He didn’t have a choice, did he? If Tsukiyama couldn’t come for him, allying with Banjou was his best option. 

“I can’t promise to protect you,” he said.

Banjou shook his head. “No one was expecting you to.” He smiled, looking like he’d gotten what he wanted.

Kaneki shook his hand off finally and stepped away from the door. “Fine. I’ll come with you,” he said. “But I want to know exactly what’s happening. Tell me everything.”


End file.
